7. Act on Administrative Control on the Production and Trading in Optical Disks, Matrixes and other Storage Media, Containing Copies or Objects of the Copy and Neighbouring Rights

Official Journal No. 74 /2005

OJ No. 105/2005;OJ No. 34/2006;OJ No. 84/2007

8. Maecenas Law

Official JournalNo. 103/2005

OJ No. 103/2005;OJ No.30, No.34 & No. 63/2006;OJ No. 109/2007

9. Electronic Communications Act

Official JournalNo. 41 / 22.05.2007

10. Cultural Heritage Act

Official JournalNo.19 / 13.03.2009in force as of10 April 2009

11. Public Libraries Act

Official JournalNo. 42 / 05.06.2009 in force as of 6 July 2009

Amended., issue. 74/ 15 September 2009, in force as of 15 September 2009

12. Act to Amend the Radio andTelevision Act

Promulgated in Official Gazette, issue 99/ 15 December 2009, in force as of 01 Jan. 2010

13. Act to Amend the National Chitalishte Act

Promulgated at Official Gazette, issue 42/ 5 June 2009

Bills

In progress

1. Draft Proposal of Performing Arts Law

A draft has been prepared and presented by the Ministry of Culture for review and comment within the Working Group - October 2010

The Law on Maecenas, adopted in 2005, was implemented to create new opportunities for the funding of culture in Bulgaria. Under the provisions of this law, the state supports and encourages the Maecenas with tax relief, determined in special legislation- the Corporate Income Tax Act and the Personal Income Tax Act. Under the terms and provisions of the Law, the tax base is reduced to 15% in cases of grants. An annual state award was established in order to stimulate this process, which will be administered by the Minister of Culture. Unfortunately, for the past five years, the Maecenas Law has not been a stimulus - it is even a considerable institutional impediment in two alternative instruments for financing Bulgarian culture - donations and the "Art Lottery". The Law is a far cry from the modern innovative forms of donation (e.g. by means of the World Wide Web) making use of some unnecessary and hard to manage intermediary organisations which, according to the Law, are supposed to connect the donor and the recipient. Consequently, nowadays we there are only 19 organisations and 5 individuals officially registered in this Register of Donors (http://mc.government.bg/page.php?p=141&s=232&sp=0&). The amounts donated could be between 50 and 500 000 yearly.

Table 7: International legal instruments

Title of international legal instrument

Year of adoption, accession, ratification

Entry into force

Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention - The Hague, 1954

OJ No. 24/07.11.1956

07.11.1956

Second Protocol to the Hague Convention of 1954 for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1999)

Ratification 14.06.2000

UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (1972)

Accepted on 07.03.1974

17.09.1975

UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970)

Ratification 15.09.1971

24.04.1972

Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (2001)

OJ No. 24/23.09.2003

Not yet in force

The Universal Copyright Convention (1971)

Accession 07.03.1973

07.06.1975

Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003)

OJ, No. 12, 7.02.2006, Ratification 10.03.2006

10.06.2006

UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions

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